Construction of various arts and crafts objects often require assembling and adhesion of two or more vertical walls together. This type of construction is frequently seen in the assembling of gingerbread houses—a confectionery-based craft immensely popular with children worldwide, particularly during holiday seasons like Christmas. Gingerbread house construction has been apparently known in Germany since the eleventh century, and very little, if anything, has changed in the method of gingerbread house construction.
A large variety of gingerbread house models are known, such as Chuang (U.S. Pat. D465,314S and D453,123S), Brown (U.S. Pat. D314,854S) and Chiu (U.S. Pat. D378,286S). However, one-person assembly of such gingerbread houses (and other gingerbread-based structures) is typically difficult and cumbersome, especially at the starting stage. Although children are typically the largest target audience of the gingerbread-based industry, most children require adult assistance in the actual assembly of gingerbread-based structures having more than one vertical wall. Even adults typically require a second set of hands to properly build a gingerbread house in a time-efficient manner.
The standard mode of construction of gingerbread-based structures (having more than one vertical wall) typically first requires that the consumer acquire a flat surface upon which to work. The flat surface may be a counter top, but is more typically a flat cardboard slate having a food-grade foil-wrap. Other types of flat surfaces (made of various materials) can be used, and may be provided within a pre-fabricated gingerbread house kit to the consumer. The flat surface, apart from preferably being safe for food handling, usually presents no other significant advantages. These surfaces have historically always been flat (ie planar), and offered no building advantage to the consumer.
The consumer places two pieces of gingerbread onto the flat surface, and bonds them together typically using an adhesive (edible) confectionery icing already known in the industry. Eventually, in the standard gingerbread house construction, the consumer attempts to add a third and fourth vertical wall, and attempts to bond them to the previously bonded walls (again using the edible adhesive icing). The icing takes time to dry, and if a consumer lets the walls go too quickly, their construction falls apart. It is impractical for one person or two people to stand in one spot, and hold their walls together, until the icing dries. The vertical walls must also, almost simultaneously, be bonded to the flat working surface (for portability, stability, cosmetics and display in different locations). This is difficult, time-consuming, frustrating, and destroys what should otherwise be an enjoyable food-making experience.
This preliminary assembly step (of gingerbread houses) is problematic for at least two reasons: first, the flat surface does not provide any guidelines as to the orientation of one vertical wall to another or in relation to the flat surface, and so the consumer is left to guess whether the angles formed by one wall bonding to another are sufficient in order to produce a stable gingerbread house (ie is the consumer actually adhering the walls at right angles, which is an ideal assembly?), or the position of a wall in relation to the surface is sufficient in terms of allocated space; and second, when the consumer attempts to bond and stabilize all four walls together, the walls typically shift in position (due to uneven pressure applied by the consumer's hands), and this results in a warped-shaped or otherwise unstable and cosmetically unappealing gingerbread house. The latter is particularly disappointing for children.
These difficulties cannot normally be overcome unless the consumer recruits a second individual to assist in holding and stabilizing some of the vertical walls, and additionally requires the consumer to pre-plan the placement of all walls of the proposed structure. These difficulties are also present in other gingerbread-based structures, for example, gingerbread-based railroad cars/trains. One-man construction of gingerbread houses is typically time-consuming and generally not an enjoyable experience to all but the most patient. One-man construction is not practical.